'We're ready when you are, Herr Leutnant,' Muller called.
'We'll have to wait,' Koenig replied. 'I must know about Hauptmann Gericke before we go.'
At that moment the field car came down the track between the sand dunes and braked to a halt at the shore end of the pier. Sergeant Witt was at the wheel, Radl in the passenger seat. The colonel got out and Koenig went to meet him.
'How is he?'
'I've had him moved to a private ward in the best hospital in Amsterdam. The finest surgeon in the Luftwaffe, a real expert on aircrew crash injuries, is flying in from Paris. He'll be with us by this evening.'
'Yes, but how is he?' Koening demanded.
'All right,' Radl said wearily. 'If you want the facts. His right thigh is fractured, an ankle reduced to matchwood and his left arm appears to be in pieces.'
'Will he survive?'
'They seem to think so, but he'll never fly again.'
'My God,' Koenig said. 'And flying is his whole life.'
Radl tried to put a good face on it. 'Yes. a great shame. Naturally, I'll see that the full facts of his remarkable flight are brought to the attention of Reichsmarschall Goering. With any luck Gericke should be awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross.'
'That's good,' Koenig said. 'Marvellous. That should really set him up for life.'
'I'm sorry, Paul,' Radl said quietly. 'Truly I am, but in this war there are no victors. Only victims. We are all victims.' He held out his hand. 'Good luck.'
'Herr Oberst.' Koenig saluted navy-style, turned and vaulted over the rail of the E-boat. He went straight into the wheelhouse and Muller supervised casting-off.
Radl stood for a long time watching it go and only when it had disappeared from sight into the mist did he return to the held car 'I'll walk back,' he told Witt.
The field car moved off and he stood looking out to sea filled with an indescribable feeling of bitterness. Someone always suffered - always. His hand ached, the eye socket burned. 'God how I wish it was all over,' he said to himself softly and he turned and walked away.
In London, as Big Ben struck three, Rogan came out of the Royal Courts of Justice and hurried along the pavement to where Fergus Grant waited at the wheel of a Humber saloon In spite of the heavy ram the Chief Inspector was in high good humour as he opened the door
'Everything go off all right, sir?' Fergus asked him
Rogan grinned smugly. 'If friend Halloran draws less than ten years I'm a monkey's uncle Did you get them?'
'Glove compartment sir.'
Rogan opened it and found a Browning Hi-Power automatic. He checked the clip rammed it back into the butt. Strange how good it felt in his hand. How right. He hefted it for a moment, then slipped it into his inside breast pocket.
'All right, Fergus, now for friend Devlin.'
.
At the same moment Molly was approaching St Mary and All the Saints on horseback by way of the field paths. Because of the light drizzle she wore her old trenchcoat and a scarf around her hair and carried a rucksack on her back covered with a piece of sacking.
She tethered her horse under the trees at the back of the presbytery and went through the back gate into the graveyard. As she went round to the porch, a shouted command drifted up the hill and she paused and looked down towards the village. The paratroops were advancing in skirmishing order towards the old mill by the stream, their red berets very clear against the green of the meadow. She could see Father Vereker, George Wilde's boy, Graham, and little Susan Turner standing on the footbridge above the weir watching. There was another shouted command and the paratroopers flung themselves down.
When she went inside the church she found Pamela Vereker on her knees at the altar polishing the brass rails, 'Hello, Molly,' she said 'Come to help?'
'Well, it is my mum's weekend for the altar,' Molly said, slipping her arms out of the rucksack, 'only she has a bad cold and thought she'd spend the day in bed.'
Another shouted order echoed faintly from the village 'Are they still at it out there?' Pamela asked 'Wouldn't you think there was enough war to get on with and still they have to play their stupid games Is my brother down there?'
'He was when I came in.'
A shadow crossed Pamela Vereker's face 'I wonder about that sometimes. Wonder if he somehow resents being out of it all now.' She shook her head 'Men are strange creatures.'
.
There were no obvious signs of life in the village except for smoke here and there from a chimney. For most people it was a working day Ritter Neumann had split the assault group into three sections of five, all linked to each other by field telephone. He and Harvey Preston were deployed amongst the cottages with one section each. Preston was rather enjoying himself. He crouched by the wall at the side of the Studley Arms revolver in hand and gave his section a hand signal to move forward. George Wilde leaned on the wall watching and his wife, Betty, appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.
'Wish you was back in action then?'
Wilde shrugged 'Maybe.'
'Men,' she said in disgust 'I'll never understand you.'
The group in the meadow consisted of Brandt, Sergeant Sturm, Corporal Becker and Privates Jansen and Hagl. They were deployed opposite the old mill. It had not been in use for thirty years or more and there were holes in the roof where slates were missing.
Usually the massive waterwheel stood still, but during the night the rushing water of the stream, flooded by many days of heavy rain, had exerted such pressure that the locking bar, already eaten away by rust, had snapped. Now the wheel was moving round again with an unearthly creaking and groaning, churning the water into foam.
Steiner, who had been sitting in the jeep examining the wheel with interest, turned to watch Brandt correcting young Jansen's technique in the prone firing position. Higher up the stream above the weir, Father Vereker and the two children also watched. George Wilde's son, Graham, was eleven and considerably excited by the activities of the paratroops.
'What are they doing now, Father?' he asked Vereker.
'Well. Graham, it's a question of having the elbows in the right position,' Vereker said. 'Otherwise he won't be able to get a steady aim. See, now he's demonstrating the leopard crawl.'
Susan Turner was bored with the entire proceedings and, hardly surprising in a five-year-old girl, was more interested in the wooden doll her grandfather had made for her the evening before. She was a pretty, fair-haired child, an evacuee from Birmingham. Her grandparents, Ted and Agnes Turner, ran the village Post Office and general store and small telephone exchange. She'd been with them for a year now.
She crossed to the other side of the footbridge, ducked under the rail and squatted at the edge. The floodwaters rushed past not more than two feet below, brown and foam-flecked. She dangled the doll by one of its movable arms just above the surface, chuckling as water splashed across its feet. She leaned still lower, clutching the rail above her head, dipping the doll's legs right into the water now. The rail snapped and with a scream she went head first into the water.
Vereker and the boy turned in time to see her disappear. Before the priest could move she was swept under the bridge. Graham, more by instinct than courage, jumped in after her. At that point the water was usually no more than a couple of feet deep. During the summer he had fished there for tadpoles. But now all was changed. He grabbed the tail of Susan's coat and hung on tight. His feet were scrabbling for the bottom, but there was no bottom and he cried out in fear as the current swept them towards the weir above the bridge.
Vereker, frozen with horror, had not uttered a sound, but Graham's cry alerted Steiner and his men instantly. As they all turned to see what the trouble was the two children went over the edge of the weir and slid down the concrete apron into the mill pool.
Sergeant Sturm was on his feet and running for the edge of the pool, tearing off his equipment. He had no time to unzip his jump jacket. The children, with Graham still hanging on to Susan, were being carried relentlessly by the current into the path of the water wheel.
Sturm plunged in without hesitation and struck out towards them. He grabbed Graham by the arm. Brandt plunged waist deep into the water behind him. As Sturm pulled Graham in, the boy's head dipped momentarily under the water. He panicked, kicking and struggling, releasing his grip on the girl. Sturm swung him round in an arc so that Brandt could catch hold of him, then plunged on after Susan.
She had been saved by the enormous force of the current, which had kept her on the surface. She was screaming as Sturm's hand fastened on her coat. He pulled her into his arms and tried to stand. But he went right under and when he surfaced again, he felt himself being drawn inexorably into the path of the water wheel.
He was aware of a cry above the roaring, turned and saw that his comrades on the bank had the boy, that Brandt was back in the water again and pushing towards him. Walter Sturm summoned up everything he had, every ounce of strength and hurled the child bodily through the air to the safety of Brandt's arms. A moment later and the current took him in a giant hand and swept him in. The wheel thundered down and he went under.
.
George Wilde had gone into the pub to get a bucket of water to swill the front step. He came out again in time to see the children go over the weir. He dropped the bucket, called out to his wife and ran across the road to the bridge. Harvey Preston and his section, who had also witnessed the mishap, followed.
Except for being soaked to the skin, Graham Wilde seemed none the worse for his experience. The same held true for Susan, though she was crying hysterically. Brandt thrust the child into George Wilde's arms and ran along the bank to join Steiner and the others, searching beyond the water wheel for Sturm. Suddenly he floated to the surface in calm water. Brandt plunged in and reached for him.
Except for a slight bruise on the forehead there wasn't a mark on him, but his eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted. Brandt waded out of the water holding him in his arms, and everyone seemed to arrive at once. Vereker, then Harvey Preston and his men and, finally, Mrs. Wilde, who took Susan from her husband.
'Is he all right?' Vereker demanded.
Brandt ripped the front of the jump jacket open and got a hand inside the blouse, feeling for the heart. He touched the small bruise on the forehead and the skin was immediately suffused with blood, the flesh and bone soft as jelly. In spite of this Brandt remained sufficiently in control to remember where he was.
He looked up at Steiner and said in fair English, 'I'm sorry, sir, but his skull is crushed.'
For a moment, the only sound was the mill wheel's eerie creaking. It was Graham Wilde who broke the silence, saying loudly, 'Look at his uniform, Dad. Is that what the Poles wear?'
Brandt, in his haste, had committed an irretrievable blunder. Beneath the open jump jacket was revealed Paul Sturm's Fliegerbluse, with the Luftwaffe eagle badge on the right breast. The blouse had been pierced to take the red, white and black ribbon of the Iron Cross 2nd Class. On the left breast was the Iron Cross 1st Class, the ribbon for the Winter War, the paratrooper's qualification badge, the silver wound badge. Under the jump jacket, full uniform, as Himmler himself had insisted.
'Oh, my God,' Vereker whispered.
The Germans closed round in a circle. Steiner said in German to Brandt, 'Put Sturm in the jeep.' He snapped his fingers at Jansen who was carrying one of the field telephones. 'Let me have that. Eagle One to Eagle Two,' he called. 'Come in please.'
Ritter Neumann and his section were at work out of sight on the tar side of the cottage. He replied almost instantly. 'Eagle Two, I hear you.'
'The Eagle is blown,' Steiner said. 'Meet me at the bridge now.'
He passed the phone back to Jansen. Betty Wilde said in bewilderment, 'What is it, George? I don't understand?'
'They're Germans,' Wilde said. 'I've seen uniforms like that before, when I was in Norway.'
'Yes,' Steiner said. 'Some of us were there.'
'But what do you want?' Wilde said. 'It doesn't make sense. There's nothing for you here.'
'You poor stupid bastard,' Preston jeered. 'Don't you know who's staying at Studley Grange tonight? Mr Lord-God-Almighty-Winston-bloody-Churchill himself.'
Wilde stared at him in astonishment and then he actually laughed. 'You must be bloody cracked. I never heard such nonsense in all my life. Isn't that so, Father?'
'I'm afraid he's right.' Vereker got the words out slowly and with enormous difficulty. 'Very well, Colonel. Do you mind telling me what happens now? To start with, these children must be chilled to the bone.'
Steiner turned to Betty Wilde. 'Mrs. Wilde, you may take your son and little girl home now. When the boy has changed, take Susan in to her grandparents. They run the Post Office and general store, is this not so?'
